Donald Trump’s administration is a catastrophe that’s hurting People. Whereas Democrats bought punished on the polls for making an attempt to enhance folks’s lives, victorious Republicans are rewarding voters by actively developing with new and artistic methods to harm them.
Like, who the hell determined that senior residents have it too simple?
“In an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity-proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone,” the Related Press reported. “Beginning March 31st, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the SSA over the phone and those who cannot properly verify their identity over the agency’s ‘my Social Security’ online service, will be required to visit an agency field office in person to complete the verification process, agency leadership told reporters Tuesday.”
So as to add insult to harm, the Trump administration plans to slash the variety of Social Safety discipline workplaces.
Multibillionaire and Trump co-President Elon Musk, having promised trillions of {dollars} in authorities cuts via his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, has lastly realized he can’t get there with out gutting enormously common entitlement packages like Medicaid and Social Safety. After calling Social Safety “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk has claimed this system meant to maintain senior residents out of poverty is beset by fraud.
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s like the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year,” Musk informed Larry Kudlow on Fox Enterprise.
In actuality, a 2024 Inspector Common report discovered $72 billion in “improper payments” over eight years (between 2015-2022), or simply $9 billion per 12 months. That represents lower than 1% of general funds distributed throughout that timeframe. If Trump actually cared about rooting out that abuse, maybe he shouldn’t have fired all of the inspectors basic as quickly as he took workplace, as that was actually their job.
Whereas this new in-person requirement will influence all seniors and folks with disabilities who obtain Social Safety funds, it is going to disproportionately have an effect on these in rural areas. City recipients can Uber or take public transportation to their native workplace. Rural People don’t have that comfort.
Take Maine, as an illustration.
“The Presque Isle field office, the only Social Security office in Aroostook County, is one of the locations that could close, forcing some Mainers to drive hours if they have trouble getting their benefits,” reported native TV station WMTW. “Many offices are already understaffed.”
Aroostook County is on the northernmost tip of Maine and covers 6,800 sq. miles with simply 67,000 residents. It is smart that the area was coated by an workplace in Presque Isle, inhabitants 8,800, as it’s the largest metropolis within the space. Trump gained the county with 62% of the vote—nearly precisely matching Trump’s rural nationwide efficiency of 64%. Sadly, we don’t have exit polls combining age and space sort, however typically talking, older rural white folks (and this county is 94.5% white) are closely Republican.
Means on the different finish of our nation from Maine, ginormous Alaska can be relegated to three Social Safety discipline workplaces. In the meantime, Musk’s DOGE has already canceled leases on 47 workplaces—16 of them in pink states, simply two in blue states, and nearly all in rural counties. And that’s probably only the start. (For instance, the Presque Island workplace isn’t on that checklist.)
As with Medicaid, Trump’s newest insurance policies are significantly merciless towards his personal supporters. They voted for him to harm different folks, or due to the mistaken perception that Trump may decrease grocery costs—and karma is biting them within the ass.
It’s fairly exceptional that rural People voted for a candidate that promised to slash authorities waste, given how a lot they profit from closely backed rural broadband, nationalized mail service, federally funded well being care, and authorities discipline workplaces like these Social Safety places. Now they’re discovering out that working the federal authorities like a enterprise implies that they are the “waste” everybody was speaking about. It seems they aren’t as self-sufficient as they thought they had been—and that serving these rural denizens is actually not environment friendly, so far as Trump and Musk are involved.
There have been 71.6 million People on Social Safety in 2023, and 5.8 million new additions to its rolls that 12 months. The brand new edict requires all new beneficiaries, in addition to anybody altering their direct deposit info, to go to a discipline workplace in individual if they can not confirm their identification by way of an internet portal—one thing that tech-challenged seniors will disproportionately battle to perform. How precisely will the company, already understaffed earlier than the DOGE bloodbath, confirm all of them in individual whereas concurrently going through extra staffing cuts of as much as 50%?
Lengthy wait instances, lengthy drives, large inconveniences … it’s all good, although. They voted to personal the libs, and mission achieved! I’m certain these penalties can be greater than value it.
